How to get Moodle assignment reminders on your iPhone

Moodle’s calendar can be exported as a live link, so the dates keep updating as teachers add work. The trick is picking the right options, so the link covers every course and keeps rolling forward. Moodle is the open-source learning platform used by universities and schools around the world.

Step 1: Find your Moodle calendar link

1. Open Moodle in a web browser and go to Calendar.
2. At the bottom, click Import or export calendars, then Export calendar.
3. Pick Events related to courses and Recent and next 60 days, then click Get calendar URL.
4. Click Copy URL.

The link looks something like https://yourschool.edu/calendar/export_execute.php?userid=…&authtoken=…. It’s private to you: anyone who has it can read your calendar, so don’t post it or share it.

Step 2: Get a reminder before every due date

1. Get Nudge from the App Store. It’s free.
2. Pick Moodle from the list of school platforms. (Later on, it’s under Settings › School calendar, or tap “Paste my calendar link” on Home.)
3. Paste the link. Your dated work appears in one list, sorted by due date, and Pip starts watching.

You choose how early Pip speaks up: 1 day and 2 hours before a deadline, or 1 day, 3 hours and 1 hour before. Deadlines due together share one nudge, and nothing arrives overnight. Nudge rechecks your link whenever you open it or pull down to refresh, and if a teacher moves a date, it tells you what changed.

What comes through from Moodle

Assignment due dates, quiz close dates and other course events for the 60 days ahead (and recent ones). Moodle sites are set up differently, so your school may label things slightly differently. Calendar feeds share due dates, not grades or whether you’ve submitted, so mark work done in Nudge after you hand it in. For anything that isn’t in the feed, type it into Nudge like a text: “essay draft thursday 9am”.

Other ways to see Moodle due dates on your iPhone

The same link works in any calendar app that can subscribe to a calendar. That’s a good way to see your due dates, but it isn’t built to remind you of them:

• Apple Calendar: in the Calendar app, tap Calendars, then Add Calendar › Add Subscription Calendar, and paste the link. Subscribed calendars are read-only, so you can’t add your own alert to each assignment, and school feeds usually don’t include alerts of their own.
• Google Calendar: on a computer, click + next to Other calendars › From URL. Google checks subscribed links on its own schedule, so new or moved due dates can take many hours to appear.

Nudge reads the link for one job: deadlines. It lists them by due date, counts down to the next one, nudges you before each, flags anything that moved, and lets you mark work done.

Troubleshooting

I clicked Export and a file downloaded.

Use Get calendar URL instead of Export. A file is a one-time snapshot; the URL stays up to date.

Only some courses show up.

Choose Events related to courses, not just your own user events.

My Moodle doesn’t have these buttons.

Moodle versions and themes vary. Look for Export calendar on the Calendar page, or ask your school where calendar export lives.

Questions

Still stuck? Email [email protected] and say which platform you use, but please don’t send the link itself. See also: what a school calendar feed is and how to keep it private.

Moodle is a trademark of its owner. Nudge is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Moodle; it reads the standard calendar link Moodle gives you.